Spain: A Unique History (21 page)

The capacity of Spain and Portugal to turn their backs on each other in modern times has been extraordinary. Given its size, Portugal has never been able to ignore Spain to the same extent that the latter ignores Portugal, but this difference is only relative. In earlier centuries, despite difficulty in communications, the Spanish kingdoms always had much more to do with Portugal, and vice versa, restricted to a large degree, to their common peninsula. After 1668 they tended more and more to go their separate ways, though with certain notable exceptions, until finally brought together again not by a peninsular entente but by the European Union in 1985.

The initial paradox is that Portugal was not institutionally, culturally, and structurally the most singular of the peninsular principalities. That distinction would have to go to Catalonia, which was considerably more different from its counterparts than was Portugal. The earlier institutions and culture of the kingdom of Portugal were basically derived from those of Galicia and León, and there was no extraordinary innovation in type or character among the earliest Portuguese institutions.

Spanish historians have often seen the origins of Portugal as stemming from a sort of politico-dynastic accident, and a considerable argument may be developed on behalf of this position. The establishment of what was to become an independent state and monarchy by Afonso I Henriques in 1128 was a typical political development of that era, as León was separated from Castile, Aragon became a kingdom, Navarre was associated with Aragon and then separated from it, and various efforts were made to establish Galicia as a distinct kingdom. Indeed, Alfonso VII did not view the new Portuguese principality as other than a vassal state of Castile, a further feature of the heterogeneous, "imperial" structure of his monarchy.

The uniqueness of the case of Portugal was not any profound difference in the culture and politics of the erstwhile new kingdom compared with these other examples, but simply that subsequent historical developments made possible the full establishment and consolidation of an independent monarchy, and ultimately of a separate country. This was due to the interplay of politics and history — contingency, in effect — and not to intrinsic and profound differences. Had the right kind of effective marriage alliance been made between the crowns of Castile and Portugal, rather than between Castile and Aragon, the resultant union would have been at least as logical and effective as that developed by the heirs of the Catholic Monarchs, if not more so. This is not to deny that Portugal over several centuries developed a very firm and distinct identity and eventually formed a more united separate nation than did Spain, but rather to stress that this was the result of a complex process of historical development. It did not lie in some predetermined essence at the roots of that process. Numerous efforts have been made by historians of Portugal to identify and define unique differences in early history, and even to advance a geographical argument for Portuguese singularity, but none of these is especially convincing.
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A unique original Portuguese "essentialism" prior to the twelfth century has yet to be discovered. This is not to deny that certain specific individual traits might be identified in nascent Portugal, but only to emphasize that these do not appear to have been any greater than equally specific and individual traits, which might have been found in the other Hispanic states, as indeed in all small medieval principalities.

During the eleventh and twelfth centuries, León and Castile had failed to develop the levels of political and institutional coherence that were being achieved in the smaller principalities of Catalonia and Aragon, and the arrogation of independence in the southwestern territories of the crown of León by Afonso Henriques, a grandson of Alfonso VI, was only one of a series of centrifugal political actions in that era. The people of his territories mostly spoke their own form of Romance, different from the vernacular of greater León, but the same was true of the people of Galicia. Moreover, the latter possessed a much older, more distinctive, and more complex and sophisticated culture and set of institutions than could be found in the southwest. About this time Galician became the principal vernacular form for "high culture" and poetry in most of the peninsula, and Galicia was more of a distinctly organized entity than were the somewhat amorphous territories of Afonso Henriques. Initially, the lands of the new monarchy were somewhat divided from the rest of León by mountains, but mountain barriers are common in the peninsula, and just as present in the case of Galicia. Later, as the kingdom of Portugal advanced southward, they would be completely absent in the newly reconquered territories. The crown of Portugal, like that of Aragon, looked to the papacy for legitimation of its independent status. The latter granted this in return for recognition of papal suzerainty, since Rome's diplomacy was as interested in maintaining the internal political disunity of the peninsula, to further papal influence, as it was conversely, and sometimes a bit contradictorily, to encourage a countervailing military unity against the Muslims. At the same time, the first king of Portugal, like his Aragonese counterpart, felt compelled to recognize a loose form of homage to his cousin Alfonso VII as Hispanic "emperor," limited though this acknowledgement was.

Of the multiple new marriage alliances among Hispanic rulers between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries, the only ones to achieve any new enduring unions were the two that reunited Castile and León and that created the "composed monarchy" of the greater crown of Aragon, while conversely Navarre broke completely free of its temporary association with Aragon.

With each passing generation the independent kingdom of Portugal developed an increasing sense of unity and identity, forging effective institutions of its own, however much they may have formally resembled those of Castile. As a typical Hispanic frontier kingdom, Portugal had the opportunity to extend its frontiers southward, strengthening its crown and providing an independent sphere of action for its own elites, thus completing its own reconquest by the middle of the thirteenth century. This closed its peninsular frontier and further assisted the distinct process of ethno-formation that was under way, until a unique and fully structured separate kingdom had been formed no later than the fourteenth century.
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Portugal had begun to assume its full historical form, though at that time no European territory constituted a modern nation.

After Portugal successfully asserted its independence from Castile in the succession crisis of 1383-85, the kingdom soon set forth on its course of overseas expansion. Although expansion beyond Hispanic home waters had been begun by the crown of Aragon at the end of the thirteenth century, the remarkable growth of overseas Aragonese territories took place within the classic Mediterranean world. The first extrapeninsular conquest of the Portuguese — Ceuta in 1415 — established a foothold in North Africa (something that Aragon and Castile had also briefly attempted), but this extension of typical Hispanic Reconquest policy was soon expanded into the program of Atlantic exploration and expansion, which became the unique enterprise of Portugal in world history.

The Portuguese would later speak of their Atlantic vocation, but this failed to transform domestic Portugal, which in the sixteenth century remained much more like Castile than was, for example, Catalonia. The Portugal of the expansion was a society of dual elites, the lesser elite of merchants, royal agents, and a portion of the aristocracy favoring oceanic projects, and the opening of enterprise beyond the Atlantic islands, all the way down the African coast and, eventually, to India itself. The main interest group of the military aristocracy, however, remained true to the classic (medieval) crusading ideal, the Reconquest now projected into the Maghrib, aimed at conquering as much territory as possible in Morocco for purposes of booty and the creation of new landed domains.

Both enterprises derived inspiration from the fifteenth-century religious revival, which affected Portugal about as much as Spain, and in the entire peninsular context (including also Valencia, so that it was not merely a matter of Castilian and Portuguese speakers) this assumed a pronounced apocalyptic tone, aimed at the crusade and ultimately the liberation of Jerusalem. It was also a major incentive for the Atlantic voyages. The famous Prince Henry was not a scientist but saw himself as a crusader; later, the court of King Manoel (who would be called "The Fortunate") lived in a kind of apocalyptic fervor, so that the dispatch of the expedition of Vasco da Gama represented not merely an opportunity to cut into the south Asian spice trade but also an effort strategically to flank the Islamic world, establish new geopolitical conditions, help to regain Jerusalem, and expedite the Second Coming.
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Much the same set of motivations as in the case of Columbus.

Until the development of Brazil in the later sixteenth century, the original Portuguese empire was not a land empire but what historians have termed a "thalassocracy," that is, an ocean-going empire built around the possession of a long string of ports and coastal fortresses, rather than extensive territories. For most of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries it remained a kind of schizophrenic empire, the Afro-Asian thalassocracy having to compete with the military crusade and territorial conquest in Morocco. For that matter, the thalassocracy itself was never a "commercial empire" of the kind later developed by the Dutch and English. Though commerce was important to it, this functioned within the broader "conquistador" ethos of early Portuguese expansion that emphasized force. By the midsixteenth century the cost was becoming greater than the benefits: although some income continued to be earned from the south Asian and African spice trade, the Portuguese crown was increasingly hard pressed for resources.

Once the romantic and crusade-minded Sebastian came of age and assumed power in 1568, the stage was set for complete domination of policy by the crusaders, leading to the large-scale invasion of Morocco ten years later and the dynastic and national disaster of Alcazarquivir.
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During its final generations, crusading was supposed to help achieve apocalypse, and it certainly did for the Portuguese monarchy. There could have been no greater demonstration of the ubiquity of the crusade in the general Luso-Hispanic culture. In this the Portuguese proved the most "typically Spanish" of all the peninsular kingdoms. In no other European state was both a dynasty extinguished and independence lost as a result of an aggressive military crusade abroad. In Portugal the "guerra divinal" produced the most extreme consequences.

The claim of Felipe II to the Portuguese crown was contested, but no other claimant could boast clearly superior legitimacy. Even though temporary military occupation by the troops of the Duque de Alba enforced that claim, the accession of the Spanish ruler was generally accepted within Portugal. In 1580-81 the peninsula was at least reunited for the first time since 711, even if historians have difficulty defining exactly what kind of union it was.

It has sometimes been said that Portugal accepted the leadership of the Spanish crown when that was to its advantage, and rejected it in 1640 when this was no longer so. There is much to be said for such an interpretation. Portuguese attitudes were always somewhat divided. This was the case in the independence conflict of the 1380s, in 1580, and also in 1640, as in all these crises sectors of the Portuguese elites supported the Spanish crown. In general, however, a Spain in decline was no longer a useful associate. Instead of offering support to Portugal, the embattled Spanish monarchy was itself requesting assistance. Instead of providing protection to the Portuguese possessions overseas, Spanish policy exposed the Portuguese thalassocracy to endless conflict with the Dutch republic, at that moment becoming the most efficient sea power in the world.

Portugal was able to cut free partly because of its geography, which made reconquest less of an absolute priority for the Spanish crown than was regaining Catalonia. Extrapeninsular factors helped as well. English assistance was important in the decisive phase of the 1660s, when Spain had ended the war with France and could concentrate dwindling resources against Portugal. And in the long run, the "second empire" (meaning Brazil, not the original Afro-Asian thalassocracy) would prove a significant source of economic strength.

In the twenty-first century, many of the Portuguese look back with some amazement at the worldwide accomplishments of their ancestors. This in turn raises the question as to exactly how much of a break the seventeenth century meant in Portuguese affairs, which is just as important as in the case of Spain, although the answers may be somewhat different. Broad generalizations about "national character" are dangerous, but the general impression is that the modern Portuguese have been a prudent, relatively subdued, and unambitious people, often characterized by the sadness associated with
saudade
, melancholic nostalgia. Any such generalization is doubtless exaggerated, but has been advanced by many observers and offers a portrait at considerable odds with what we know of the Portuguese elite during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

Portuguese society and institutions, like those of any country, eventually came to have its own distinctive characteristics, medieval Portugal being even more agricultural than Castile, which featured greater cattle production. Yet in general, Portuguese institutions and culture paralleled those of Castile and León. The development of the kingdom largely resembled that of its eastern neighbors, so that the expansion of Portugal in the fifteenth century did not necessarily reflect any unique "Atlantic" or "mercantile" society any more than it did a somewhat archaic, typically Iberian crusade-and-reconquest mentality. The Portuguese did indeed introduce some new interests and techniques, the subsequent thalassocracy developing maritime and commercial concerns of a new kind, but throughout this period the Portuguese elite continued to be dominated by the most traditional of religious, aristocratic, and traditional values, honored and emphasized to the point of self-destruction in 1578.